She was out of breath, and she carried a thick script under her arm. “Am I late?” She smiled briefly at Alloway.
“A little,” Van said. “Come on over.”
She walked to the desk and dumped the script under the lamp. “There it is, father; my latest sweat and blood. Now all we have to do is match it with Walt’s.”
Walt sighed painfully. “Yes,” he said. “That’s all we have to do.”
“Oh, mother, I wish I had a shot,” Lois said. She twisted her hands nervously. “Mother, could I use a shot.”
“Relax,” Walt told her.
“But suppose he doesn’t like it. Suppose...”
“He’ll like it.”
They sat side by side on the couch in Hayden Thorpe’s reception room. Across from them, the blonde receptionist was busily filing her nails.
“But suppose he doesn’t?” Lois insisted. “And where’s Van? It’s almost fifteen now. Shouldn’t he be here by now? Will it look bad if we’re late? I mean...”
“For God’s sake, relax,” Alloway said. “Thorpe is Van’s partner. If he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it, that’s all. We’ll start all over again.”
“Isn’t there some time limit? Don’t they have to start shooting right away? Oh, mother, do you think Thorpe would let me have a morph fix?”
“Lo, honey, if you don’t pull yourself together...”
The lift doors slid open, and Walt leaned forward. “Here’s Van now.”
Van strode across the room rapidly. He wore tight green breeches, and his muscles gleamed wetly under their coat of alcojel. His blue eyes snapped to the couch, and a smile lifted his mouth.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Does Hayden know we’re here?”
“No,” Lois said in a small voice.
“Well, we don’t want to keep him waiting.” He walked to the receptionist, who looked up lazily from her nails.
“Sir?”
“Will you tell Mr. Thorpe that Miss Sylvan, Mr. Alloway, and Mr. Brant are here to see him, please?”
“Yes, sir.” The receptionist plugged in, and then spoke into her mouthpiece. “He’ll see you now, sir.”
“Thank you.” Van turned toward the couch. “Let’s go, kids.”
Lois stood up too hurriedly, almost tripping. Walt took her arm to steady her, then released it instantly. They followed Van into Hayden’s office, and Hayden rose to greet them.
“Have you got it?” he asked. His round face was flushed, and Brant decided that he’d just popped off.
“We’ve got it, father.”
Hayden rubbed his pudgy hands together. “Good, good. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
“Hayden,” Van said, “I don’t think you’ve met the scribes. Walt Alloway and Lois Sylvan, this is Hayden Thorpe.”
There was a murmured round of polite “how do you do’s” and then Hayden said, “Well, where is it?”
“Walt?”
Alloway came forward and removed a thickly-bound script from a briefcase. He handed it to Hayden, and Hayden grinned. “Feels good,” he said.
“It is good,” Van answered.
“Well, we’ll see. Sit down, won’t you?”
Lois looked around her in bewilderment. She spotted a couch against the wall, moved to it, and sat quickly before her knees gave way. Van sat on her left, and Walt sat down on her right. Hayden brought the script to a small table, dropped it there, and then went to his desk. He selected a cigar from a humidor, ripped off one end with his teeth, and then lighted it, great balls of smoke billowing from his mouth. He sighed, studied the lighted, glowing end of the cigar, sighed again, and then walked back to the small table. He picked up the script, sat down in a big chair under the ceilamp, made himself comfortable, and began reading.
After a while, his brow furrowed, and his mouth tightened. His eyes narrowed in concentration. Lois, Bruce, and Van sat opposite him on the couch.
The room was quiet.
Outside, the midday traffic on the various levels raised a din that tried valiantly to penetrate the muted office.
Brant had never seen a Corradonict smoke before. For all he knew, the cigar was just a prop. Hayden certainly didn’t seem aware of it. But great billows of smoke rose from his mouth, puffed out over his head, smothered him, and the chair, and the script.
The electric chronometer on the wall hummed quietly. Van began to jiggle his foot. Hayden coughed and turned a page. He read silently, turned another page, blew out another stream of smoke. The rustle of the paper made a loud, scratching sound in the silence of the room. Hayden made a noise that sounded like a cross between a burp and a grunt. He turned another page. The chronometer on the wall continued humming, throwing seconds, minutes, hours into the room. The cloud of smoke thickened and Hayden kept turning pages, one after the other, grunting occasionally, burping frequently. And finally, he leaned back, closed the script.
Van heard Lois gasp beside him, saw Walt lean forward expectantly.
“Well...” Hayden said. He studied the end of his cigar, sighed, and tossed it into the disposotray.
Lois gripped Walt’s hand tightly, and he glanced down at it for a moment, and then turned his eyes to Hayden’s face.
Hayden drew a heavy breath, and Van felt Lois tense.
“It’s terrific,” Hayden said mildly. “We can start shooting at once.”
Chapter 9
The sun was high, and the network of metallic ribbons stretching across the sky reflected shimmering pinpoints of light. The blinds in Brant’s office were tilted, allowing the sunlight to splash into the room, covering his desk top. Van basked in the sunlight, feeling comfortable and warm. When the buzzer on his desk sounded, he reached for it idly, clicked down the toggle, and drawled, “Yes?”
“Dino Pelazi to see you, Van.”
Van blinked. “Who?” he asked Lizbeth.
“Dino Pelazi, Van.”
“The Ree? The critic? The... the Ree?”
“The same.”
“Well.” He grinned. “Well. Give me ten minutes, then show him in.”
He cleared off his desk, leaving the top as shining and flawless as a mountain lake. Then he walked around the office and straightened the magazines and paperbacks. He closed the top of the bar, straightened a stereoscopic of a nude on the wall, and tilted the blinds so that the sun was strong behind him. He went to the closet, rubbed on some alcojel, combed his hair, and scrutinized himself in the door mirror. He pulled his breeches higher on his waist, saw that his boots carried a high polish, sucked in his stomach, and then walked back to his desk. He was tempted to face the windows, presenting his back to the entrance door and his guest, the way Pelazi had done that day at the courthouse. He reasoned that this would be childish, tilted his head instead so that the sunlight hit his profile.
The door slid open in a few moments, and he heard Liz announce, “Mr. Pelazi, sir.”
There was the shuffle of feet into the room, and then he heard the swish of Liz’s skirts, and the whisper of the door as it slid shut behind her. He did not look up. He was remembering that day at the courthouse, and he was savoring this brief period of rudeness. He kept looking through the blinds for a few moments, and then he turned casually.
Pelazi had stopped in the center of the room.
He was not at all what Van had pictured. Having seen only his back and his hair previous to this, Van had expected a somewhat older man. This man was young, and tallish, with a carefully trimmed black beard. His hair was white, just as Van remembered it, and Van imagined he resented the natural processes which had unwittingly given him the two-tone Vike effect. He wore a severely tailored black suit that was a shade lighter than his ebony beard. His collar was high and tight, his tie thin. His shoes were black and highly polished. He had a straight, strong nose that sliced down the middle of his face like a cleaver. His lips were drawn together in a tight line beneath that nose, carefully concealing his teeth. His eyes could tell stories, but they were short of material at the moment.